Research

Research Overview

Because we are natural born explorers. To explore is to know; to know is to survive. To stop knowing is a threat to our human survival. There is always more to know. We can never know it all. We can never reach the end of knowledge, the end of the universe, the end of the internet! As the American poet Emily Elizabeth Dickinson declared, "This World Is Not Conclusion."

Explorer. This is our earliest archetype, our most viral meme, expressed in our genes, and captured in the Middle French root word – recherche – research – ‘to go about seeking.’ Before hunter-gatherer, we were explorers. Before we were civilized, we explored. This is our path to being modern. We explored inward to discover consciousness and soul and language. We explored the heavens for gods and our earth for elements and atoms.

This is our legend and legacy. Our first steps out of Africa, our first wanderings in the womb. Before writing, reading and arithmetic, we research. This is what we do. This is who we are. We go about seeking. We are natural born researchers.

WHY EARLY RESEARCH?

Because you can. Because passion and curiosity, research and discovery, invention and innovation does not need a PhD. This course is based on the belief that students like yourself who drive cars, use computers, excel at video games, and navigate a host of twenty-first century technologies can also learn to recrystallize solids, rotovap solvents, reflux reactions, separate mixtures, operate modern lab instruments, isolate DNA, stain tissue, grow cells, raise fly colonies, conduct anticancer studies, discover new antibacterials or develop new sensors for toxic materials.

BEST Early Research Program

The BEST Early research program has a dual and simultaneous focus on early human resource development and on development of new synthetic organic methods. This has lead to a synergistic, integrative and innovative blend of teaching, research and public science.

The major scientific theme of our laboratory research program is the design, synthesis and utilization of novel functionally dense small organic molecules. This is coupled with a science workforce development strategy of providing early research participation opportunities for undergraduate and high school students in both curricular and non-curricular settings.

Student Presentations - Posters & powerpoint

The following are selected student research posters and presentations over the last ten years:

"An Investigation of the Toxicity of a Putative Carbamate-based Insecticide." Wei Li, David Mbungu and Desmond Murray, First Annual Andrews University Research Celebration, Howard Performing Arts Center, March 9, 2009